Al-Qasim bin Muhammad1 said:
The differences in opinion among the Companions of Muhammad ﷺ are a mercy for the people.
Ibn Sa’d in his Tabaqat and Bayhaqi in al-Madkhal
Umar bin Abd al-Aziz said:
Red camels would not please be more than (the existence) of differences in opinion between the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ.
Tabaqat Ibn Sa’d
Al-Bayhaqi narrated it in al-Madkhal with the wording:
It would not please me had the Companions of Muhammad not differed, because had they not differed, there would be no dispensations.
The above narrations no doubt are referring to differences in subsidiary matters (furu) i.e. matters of Law (fiqh). The Messenger of Allah ﷺ permitted ijtihad (legal reasoning of a scholar) and differences of opinion in Islamic law are therefore inevitable. In Fiqh there can be more than one correct ruling and for this reason in the early years of Islam there were many Madhabs, since the Sahaba themselves differed in some matters of law. They would respectfully disagree on these issues and this would not lead to enmity or quarrelling, yet alone takfir!2
Abu Nuaym narrates in al-Hilyah from Abdullah bin Abd al-Hakam who said:
I heard Malik bin Anas saying:
“Harun al-Rashid consulted me regarding (the idea of) hanging the Muwatta3 inside the Ka’ba and imposing it upon the people. I said to him, ‘Do not do that for indeed the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ differed in subsidiary matters (furu) and they spread throughout the lands. And all of them are correct.’
The Mujtahid Imams believed they were correct in their Ijtihad but did not deny the possibility of other Mujtahids also being correct. They understood that every common Muslim was merely obliged to follow any valid Madhab and they did not see fit to force people of all lands to follow them. Such was the sincerity of the likes of Imam Malik, may Allah be pleased with him.
Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti bluntly states:
You should know that the differences between the Madhabs of this nation are a great blessing and an immense virtue. And in this is a subtle secret which the people of knowledge have grasped and the ignorant ones are blinded to. This is to the extent that I have heard some ignoramuses saying “the Prophet ﷺ came with one Law so from where did the four Madhabs come from?!”
Jazeel al-Mawahib fi ikhtilaf al-Madhahib
Unfortunately these types of ignorant comments are still made in our times. As mentioned, in the early years of Islam there were many Mujtahid Imams who had Madhabs which were followed by the people. However, most of these schools died out due to them not being passed down, codified and preserved. Eventually the only schools of law which remained were the well-known four schools of:
- Imam Abu Hanifa
- Imam Malik bin Anas
- Imam al-Shafi’i
- Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal
These schools exist till this day and the consensus (Ijma) of the Ulema is that one of them must be followed.
Simply put, every Muslim (who is not capable of ijtihad) is required to follow qualified scholarship. Qualified scholarship only remains within the confines of the four schools; hence it is required of every Muslim to follow one of them. All four of the schools are correct and any of them can be adhered to.
All four Madhabs come under the banner of the Shariah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, since they are all valid interpretations of it. The vast majority of the rulings in the Madhabs are the same and they only differ in a minority of matters. The differences occur due to the different methodologies (usul) of the Imams in deriving rulings which inevitably lead to different conclusions in those things which are open to interpretation.4
1] The grandson of Sayiduna Abu Bakr al-Sidiq. He was a Tabi and was one of the great Fuqaha of Madinah.
2] This is in distinction to Aqidah which is one and that is the Aqidah of the Ahl al-Sunna wa’l Jama’ah. Unlike differences in Fiqh, differences in Aqidah are not a mercy nor permitted, notwithstanding minor inconsequential differences between the three strands of Ahl al-Sunna (the Asharis, Maturidis and Atharis).
3] A book of Hadith and Fiqh by Imam Malik.
4] Working translations and extracts from an upcoming project, inshallah.
Orthodox Muslim 